Recent deregulation in the communications industry has opened up to full-scale competition the IntraLATA long-distance telephone market. Taking advantage of the new regulatory environment, Interexchange Carriers (IXC), such as AT&T, have started offering and aggressively marketing to telephone subscribers intraLATA long distance communications services (hereinafter called "intraLATA toll calls").
Unfortunately, IXC efforts in the intraLATA toll calls market have been hampered by a number of roadblocks. For example, a telephone subscriber who wants to place an intraLATA toll call and who wishes to use the communications services offered by an IXC instead of the services of the local telephone company, must first dial a five-digit access code (assigned to the IXC) followed by the seven-digit (or ten-digit) telephone number of the called party. This cumbersome dialing arrangement is needed because users of local telephone service cannot pre-subscribe to a communications carrier of their choice for intraLATA toll calls the same way they can select a primary interface carrier for interLATA communications services. The inconvenience of dialing the carrier access code gives an unfair advantage to the Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) because no access code is needed for access to the LEC network. Hence, from a public policy perspective, the carrier access code dialing arrangement hinders, rather than promotes, full-scale competition in the intraLATA toll calls market.
In response to this problem, network-based and premises-based solutions have been proposed. For example, in an effort to level the playing field in the intraLATA communications services market, consideration has been given to implement an equal access solution for intraLATA toll calls, as is currently done for long distance communications services. However, implementation of equal access for intraLATA toll calls would require expensive hardware upgrade and/or software changes to the Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) central office switches.
From a premises standpoint, it has been suggested that users who have telephone sets with speed-dial feature program their telephone sets to include the five-digit access code of their preferred carrier in frequently dialed numbers for intraLATA toll calls. However, this solution is only limited to those frequently called numbers and is inoperative for telephone sets with speed-dial memory capable of storing less than twelve (12) digits. Hence, it is a continuing problem to provide telephone subscribers with a convenient way to select a carrier of their choice for intraLATA toll calls.